


body bag

by colloquialrhapsodist



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2066889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colloquialrhapsodist/pseuds/colloquialrhapsodist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cissnei visits Zack's grave. Written in 2013.</p>
            </blockquote>





	body bag

They say the only way to leave the Turks is in a body bag.

She wonders if that would be more comfortable.

There are flowers. Flowers don’t grow anywhere in Midgar, not even the outskirts; its toxins have choked the dirt, the Mako Reactors like giant needles sliding into human skin. Taking out all the useful blood and filling the earth with drugs and poison instead. Is that what they did to him, back there, in that horrible place? Drugged him and injected him with the purified poisons of the earth until his body was malleable?

If only it had been someone she didn’t know.  Somebody that didn’t  _matter._

She kneels by the flowers, stroking one of the soft yellow petals. They’re beautiful, and it hurts to look at them. Her eyes burn, but they are dry as a bone.

This isn’t the first time she’s considered deserting. She thinks about it all the time – in the tiny, cramped cell she calls a room, a place to wait until it’s morning; in the little mess hall, where the black suits are perfect and pristine and contrive to remain spotless; in the field, where she is cold and focused and the grips of her gloves perfectly match Rekka’s blade. In each little pocket, her world is all about the job. If the job is not done right, it is better off not done at all, and  _you_  are better off dead.

The one time her job coincided with keeping him safe. And she _failed._

The humiliation is almost worse than her grief.

Behind her, there is a restless murmur as Tseng shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Fine. Let him be impatient. They’re not on duty, so where else would he be? No doubt watching Aerith from the shadows like he does. He watches. He waits. He does the job. So did she, once.

“I’m in no hurry,” she says quietly.

“Cissnei.”

Her hand folds over the flower, crushing it in her fist. She plucks it off the stem and stands, clenching the shredded remains of the petal like it’s Rekka. Her glove is probably getting yellow pollen on it. At least it’s a different color than black. Or red. She doesn’t respond, and he waits for a moment.

“We should press on.”

She opens her hand, carelessly allowing the flower head to spiral back on top of the grave. The wind takes it, dropping it off a few meters south of the rest of the flowers – and there the little yellow flower lays, rejected, wilting, a tiny smudge of yellow on a backdrop of gray sand.

She turns to face Tseng, but her eyes remain on the flower. “I know.”

“… It wasn’t your fault.”

Poor, poor Tseng. She shakes her head, smiling – an empty mask as familiar and comfortable as the suit. What words can he possibly express that he has not already tried to tell himself a hundred, a thousand,  _ten thousand_  times? It’s a purposeless phrase. She considers it for a brief moment, and ignores it.

It was a job she failed. That was all. Gone unsanctioned by Shinra, perhaps it was  _doomed_  to fail.

The needles prick at her skin.

She turns from him to walk back along the path, taking care to step on the discarded flower. “Let’s move on.”

He follows her, a shadow.

If she was to turn around and kill him, would he even defend himself?

She imagines being buried beneath the dirt, flowers growing above her head and the roots tangling in her mangled hair. She imagines the oppressive air, how every breath is an inhale of sand and rock, which fill up her lungs and choke her. She can taste the sand on her tongue, sweet with Shinra’s poison, Shinra’s lifeblood.  _Her_  lifeblood.

They say the only way to leave the Turks is in a body bag.

But at least, by then, she is already dead.


End file.
